This question, divested of the phraseology
calculated to represent me as struggling for an arbitrary
prerogative, is either simply a question who shall decide, or an
affirmation that nobody shall decide, what the public safety does
require in cases of rebellion or invasion.
"The Constitution contemplates the question as likely to occur
for decision, but it does not expressly declare who is to decide
it. By necessary implication, when rebellion or invasion comes,
the decision is to be made, from time to time; and I think the
man, whom for the time, the people have under the Constitution,
made the commander-in-chief of their army and navy, is the man
who holds the power and bears the responsibility of making it.
If he uses the power justly, the same people will probably
justify him; if he abuses it, he is in their hands to be dealt
with by all the modes they have reserved to themselves in the
Constitution."
Lincoln virtually appealed to the Northern people to secure
efficiency by setting him momentarily above all civil authority.
He asked them in substance, to interpret their Constitution by a
show of hands. No thoughtful person can doubt the risks of such
a method; yet in Ohio, in 1863, the great majority--perhaps
everyone who believed in the war--accepted Lincoln's position.
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